


Papa

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Car Accidents, Children, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:25:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11251221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It was supposed to be a good day. Why wasn't it a good day?





	Papa

Your short legs kick as they dangle in the air, thanks to the combined efforts of your smallness and the booster seat your mother always has to remind your father to strap you up in before the two of you go anywhere alone. On a normal day, you would be going to pick up Latula from the skate park that she and her friends usually hang out at right now, but she is currently home sick with your mother, so instead you and your dad are having a day out since your parents know how much you hate seeing (well, "seeing") Latula sick. You happily lick at a lemon ice pop ("limonnyy pop," as your father reminds you, and you don't have the energy to argue with him about English versus Russian so instead just roll your little eyes at him with as much sass as you can muster at only seven) which has started to melt onto your fingers as your father drives to the Bronx Zoo.

"Do you want to go to the reptile house first?" Your mother is a fierce woman, with a stare that could make men twice her size cower and mind so sharp it could cut office buildings in half, but when she goes to the zoo with your little family, the reptile house is always the last thing you visit due to her fear of snakes. Your father's accent is thick, much thicker than your mother's slight twinge of Russian that mixes into her speech effortlessly, as if the accent is the natural state of being for one's voice and it is Americans who are odd-sounding, but it is familiar to you and you aren't sure you could imagine feeling at home with anything else.

"Yes, papa!" You yell enthusiastically, and your own voice is so small and high that it almost frustrates you because Latula's is already dropping into her more pubescent voice and all of her male friends either sound like the basketball players that you hear in interviews on TV, or like boys your age (these friends always make you laugh more than the more broody-sounding ones). He laughs and the sound is so familiar that it comforts you more than most things, and his accent can be heard even in the warm chuckles that fill the car. It takes almost half an hour to find parking, which you imagine is probably because it is a sunny Saturday afternoon in New York and you are trying to go to the zoo.

Papa makes you hold his hand as you walk around the zoo, which you imagine is probably related in some way to Latula's legendary habit to wander off when the two of you were younger. You can hardly remember since you were barely two at the time, but you still hear the story of that time at the park when she was five.

You babble on about things you aren't sure your father is really following or listening to as you walk through the park with your tiny hand wrapped in his, thin little fingers poking out, but he smiles and laughs at the right times which convinces you well enough that you don't stop.

You are at the zoo for nearly two hours, only leaving when your father has noticed that your shoulders and nose are sunburnt and that it is almost four o'clock, so your mother will probably be expecting you to come home soon. You think that clouds are covering the sun, because it feels a lot cooler than it did when you were looking at the tigers (people always wonder why the zoo is so fun for you when you are blind), and you smile as your dad picks you up to carry you back to the car, head lolling onto his shoulder.

When your papa asks you what your favorite part of visiting was, you say that it was making faces at the Komodo dragons, which he told you stuck their tongues back out at you when you stuck your tongue out at them. He remembers on his own to buckle you into the booster seat in the back of your mother's small car, and you remember her telling you when you moved to the city that it was silver, and that she got it to keep the car from overheating since darker cars absorbed more heat from the sun. At the time, you thought it was probably some sort of color magic, but at this point you are excepting that your mom is just super smart and cool and of course she would know cool smart stuff like that. You beam quietly to yourself in the back of the car, thinking about your new coloring book at home (your parents always wondered why you loved coloring so much, but Latula had encouraged your love of art despite your disability so you continued to do it).

You are twenty minutes into the drive and halfway back to your family's two-bedroom apartment (your parents tell you and your sister that you're seven and ten, and don't need your own rooms yet, and that when you are old enough to need your own rooms you'll move) when something goes wrong. It sounds like an explosion, as you hear a loud crashing noise, as well as crunching and the shattering of glass. Your immediate instinct is to scream, and so you do, until all of the air leaves your tiny body as you crash forward into the passenger's seat and then back to your regular spot, though something feels wrong about it.

It isn't until you feel the rush of blood into your head that you realize you are currently stuck hanging upside down, and you scream for your papa to help you but he is silent and the car smells suspiciously metallic. You are kicking your legs again but it is much harder now and your throat is beginning to hurt from all of your screaming and yelling, but you can't stop because you think your papa is sleeping and he needs to wake up, _wake up,_ you're scared and you don't want to be alone. You can now hear the sound of people panicking outside of your car and you think you hear someone trying to open your door but it is stuck shut and you are suddenly banging your little fists against the window but you're too small to do anything, and too strapped in to get out even if you could.

You change your tactic, reaching your hands out to grasp at your father's seat, but your arms are too short to actually reach it so you are stuck, squirming and upside down, reaching at something you realistically know you won't be able to grasp. Someone is trying to talk to you through the window, and you think they are trying to ask questions but it's all a blur since your head is pounding with your heartbeat.

The straps from your booster seat are starting to dig into your legs and chest and arms, and you are crying incoherently to anyone else. "Papa! Papa, p-pozhaluysta, prosnis'! Papa, pozhaluysta! Mne strashn-no! Papa! I ne khochu byt' odin!" You have gone from screaming to mumbling through tears. Your eyelids are so heavy...

You don't know how long you are there like that, dangling limply, barely conscious, calling for your father at varying levels of coherency and volume, but it feels like an eternity. Your body feels heavy and like it should have fallen by now due to its weight, but you know that is just the blood that has rushed to your head because you have heard your mom talk about the victims of her accident cases and how they felt before they died. This sends a whole new wave of terrified energy into you and you wail, screaming and crying again until you suddenly hear the sound of glass breaking again and you are being cut free from the straps that have held you prisoner for God knows how long (though your family doesn't actually believe in God) and pulled out of the car. You feel cuts along your face from the glass but you find it hard to care.

The man carrying you smells like chocolate and men's body spray, and you blink your eyes open at him as the weight in your body seems to start shifting all at once, your head throbbing from the absence of your blood and you think you might throw up but you don't care because the only thing in the world that you want right now is your father. You can hear men talking toward what must be the front of the car but your ears are still pounding so you can't understand them. You find it is easier to breathe, and you didn't notice that your eyes felt like they were going to pop out of your skull until they didn't anymore but dear _God_ , did they. You can hear from where your head rests against his chest that this man is panicking, rushing you to a loud vehicle that you can't identify. "Are you an angel?"

While you have never actually been religious, you think that surviving this and being saved by this man might change that part of you, at least enough to believe in creatures like angels. He seems confused for a second, before he laughs, and it's similar enough to your father's while simultaneously different enough that it hurts your heart and you feel like you have just been stabbed, which, technically you have, as the blood trickling slowly down the side of your head reminds you. "No."

"A demon, then?" He laughs again, sounding amused with you which you think is good because it means that he is no longer panicking, and you feel your eyes closing like they do when your mother is singing to you.

"No, I'm not a demon, either."

You don't have time to ask another question before you are curling up in his arms and passing out, and though you don't dream often, you currently dream of the smell of pine trees and snow from home, something you have always missed and that New York will never be able to replicate, no matter how close they may be able to come in the Winter. The small town you are from does not smell like a city, like the alcoholics in the street that harass your mom when you are on walks for putting their cousins in jail, or like gasoline and burning rubber as someone speeds down the street the moment a light changes because they are late for an appointment. It smells like home. Like papa.


End file.
